Bound

Binding is a neutral word that takes on innocuous or sinister meaning depending on who is doing the action and why. We fasten wounds with bandages to protect them, combine ingredients to form a single mass, hold each other accountable, join causes, stitch book pages together. We also restrain the movement of limbs, constrain entire communities to silence, force each other to keep secrets, cinch our bodies into ideal shapes, put limits on creativity and hope. Bound utilizes the very act of binding to reveal many ways we live in bondage and calls into question the duplicity of each of them.